Guild Steals Spotlight for Ninety North

5th-FGX, $40,000, Msw, 3yo, f, a5 1/2fT, 1:04 3/5, yl. 
THIEVES GUILD, f, 3, by Medaglia d’Oro 
1st Dam: Gilded Gold (MSW & GSP, $410,182), by Gilded Time 
2nd Dam: Gran Senorita, by El Gran Senor 
 3rd Dam: Hope for a Breeze, by Briartic 
Lifetime Record: 2-1-1-0. Click for the brisnet.com chart or VIDEO or free brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree . O-Ninety North Racing. B-Flay Thoroughbreds, Barry Weisbord & Robert & Joan Masterson (Ky). T-J Toner. 

By Michael Illiano
   Thieves Guild (Medaglia d’Oro), a 3-year-old filly who graduated impressively last Saturday, is the product of the Ninety North Racing syndicate, which has focused on building a small, talented stable by identifying horses with buried talent for a bargain price. Justin Nicholson, the 28-year-old president and owner of the 90 North Racing , inherited a strong foothold in the racing industry, and he’s looking to share it. Nicholson’s approach has allowed him to offer people affordable stakes in racehorses. 
    “I’ve had a great time owning horses, so this is a chance for me to stay involved in the business while bringing new people in,” Nicholson said. 
Nicholson’s father, Ronald, got involved with racing in the mid-80’s, buying horses in a partnership called Kimran Stables with the hope that Justin would share his passion. 
    “My dad was in the business from when I was two or three years oldand one of the reasons he got involved was that he wanted to have something to share with me,” Nicholson said. “He was an older guyand didn’t know if he’d be playing too many sports with me, but racing was something we could share.“ 
    Ironically, Nicholson grew up allergic to horses, so his exposure to racing came on the business side. Studying the sport from that perspective prepared him to take over his family’s involvement in the business. Nicholson decided to expand his involvement in late 2011, when he decided to start 90 North Racing using the network he and his father had developed throughout the racing industry as a foundation. 
    “The syndicate is basically making public the formula that we had been using privately,” Nicholson said. “We use the same trainer,Jimmy Toner, who has worked with us for 30 years, and the same network of people, and make them available to people interested in ownership.” 
    Right now, the syndicate has a stable of six horses and about 40 clients partnering in those horses. Nicholson said that, while he would like to grow the number of owners involved, he sees advantages to keeping the stable small. 
    “I call it a boutique operation, so I don’t see it getting bigger than 10 horses, and we might stay right around five,” Nicholson said. “My goal is to be hands on and getting to know all of the owners–a lot of our clients are people who are doing this for the first time and are looking to learn about ownership–so I want to make sure I’m available to our clients.” 
    The syndicate’s focused approach also allows them to spend more time developing horses that larger operations might overlook. Nicholson estimates that most of the horses the syndicate has purchased have been in the $50,000 to $75,000 range, and have ranged from yearlings to horses of racing age. With these relatively cheap purchases, the syndicate has worked to identify horses who have potential that its program can cultivate. 
    “Our goal is to fill a niche in this market where we try to buy horses that we think have talent and who we think we can improve and see if they break through into stakes-type horses,” Nicholson said. 
    Thieves Guild was purchased privately by 90 North as a yearling after she RNA’d at the 2012 Keeneland September sale. Nicholson said that he was impressed by her pedigree, especially considering that she fell within 90 North’s price range, but knew that she would need time. 
    “Her hind end was practically above her head–she was in the middle of all kinds of growth spurts–so we knew she was going to be a project,” Nicholson said. “But we thought that buying a filly with pedigree would give us a chance to make it to a higher level if we were patient and let her grow into herself.” 
    Instead of entering Thieves Guild into training right away, Nicholson and his team opted to turn her out for two months to let her mature physically. 
    “It was a small thing to do, but I think it made a big difference because if we pressed on her too early I think we would have had bad results,” Nicholson said. 
    The wait paid off. In her first start at Fair Grounds, Thieves Guild finished second, losing by a head after dueling gamely with a more experienced filly down the stretch. The finish was more impressive considering the race was moved off the turf–the surface her pedigree suggests she would be strongest on. 
    “She ran huge that first time out. She had been working well in the mornings so we weren’t surprised that she ran well, but we didn’t expect her to run that well,” Nicholson said. 
    Given her strong performance on the dirt, the group had to decide whether to go with their initial expectations and return to the turf or keep her on the main track for her second start. The group, again, trusted her pedigree and entered her over 5 1/2 furlongs on the lawn in New Orleans Saturday. Thieves Guild responded, rallying from fourth to take the lead in the upper stretch and driving home to win by three lengths. 
    “It was really nice to see. When you make the decision to be patient with a filly, it’s a very special feeling to be rewarded for that,” Nicholson said. 
    While her early performance have been impressive, the syndicate wants to make sure Thieves Guild continues to develop. 
    “She’s still green–you can see that especially when she’s changing leads–and physically, every time I see her she is bigger and more proportioned. So I would be really surprised if she didn’t continue to develop from here,” Nicholson said. “We’d like to try to stretch her to 7 1/2 over the turf course at Fair Grounds to see what she can do. We’ll have to see what our options are. We hope she will be a consistent stakes performer down the road, but right now we just want to make sure she gets there.” 
    Right now the syndicate is in a similar spot. 
    “We’ve managed to build a small stable, but we have a lot of horses that are on the cusp. We’ve identified talent which is what we set out to find, and we’re just sitting hoping that somebody is going to break through and put us on the map,” Nicholson said.